This week we touched on basic sentence structure and practiced with a few short sentences. We will do this in more detail in later lessons :]

Generally, the order of the sentence is as follows:

time, subject, object, verb, negation [not, never, no, etc.]

Verbs are not conjugated in sign language, so the meaning of the sentence [you vs. I, question vs. statement] is based highly on context and facial expressions. Also, the sentences use only the necessary words to get the point across, which means they are much simpler than English sentences.

Examples: [words in brackets are optional depending on context]

I eat breakfast at 8am. –> 8 morning food/eat [refresher/breakdown: time is indicated by the sign for the number rising from your “watch”, then the sign for morning, then the noun/verb for food/eat–they’re the same]

ASL song interpretation rarely follows the words of the song exactly, nor does it necessarily follow the proper grammar rules of either spoken English or ASL. This is an interpretation of “Rudolph”– the all caps denotes the ASL signs. Our very own (still) lovely Jessica has also made a video of our version of “Rudolph”.

ASL song interpretation rarely follows the words of the song exactly, nor does it necessarily follow the proper grammar rules of either spoken English or ASL. This is an interpretation of “Jingle Bells”– the all caps denotes the ASL signs. Our very own lovely Jessica has also made a video of our version of “Jingle Bells”.